Deadly Kisses - By Kerri Cuevas Page 0,9
to hellish.” I put some wax on the rag and started to rub it into the wood of my gondola.
“What is your thing? Do you have a hobby; do anything for fun, or you going to waste your afterlife waxing that hunk of wood? Or maybe you wish you were floating on clouds sipping lemonade?” Reina asked.
I looked up in a cold stare, feeling my blue eyes turning to icicles. “No! I don’t wish that. I wouldn’t fit in there! Stop messing with me.”
“I get it, you want to fry in Hell and get tortured for all eternity. Hmm, that can be arranged.” She smiled and winked at me. Her brown hair was streaked with blue stripes. She was only trying to cheer me up. Reina was the closest friend I had. “All right, truce.”
I moved on to another section of the gondola satisfied with the shiny gloss to the wood. “Does being a Grim Reaper make you feel like you’re alive again?”
Reina tapped her foot up and down with a steady motion. “Yes it does, and there is nothing wrong with wanting that. I don’t know why you choose to live on your gondola. The city is nice, and you could get your own place. Abe would be ecstatic to have his other Reaperling living close to him.”
“Ecstatic, eh?” The thought of Abe and I as neighbors would send him in a mad dash to the nearest psychiatrist. “Let’s hope Freud became a Grim Reaper.”
Reina laughed, but it was more of a high pitched screech. “Do you like being a Grim Reaper?”
“Most days. Seeing a soul walk through the Golden Gate makes it worthwhile.”
“I feel the same way, but enough about work. Will you come with me to the party? Bob will hook you up with some firewater from down under, and some of those demon chicks are performing tonight. They put on a hell of a show if you’re into death rock.”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea, Reina. I’m not the crowd type, but the thought is nice.”
“Sheesh, you seriously need to lighten up. When’s the last time you went on a date, had some fun? I bet that’s what you need.” Reina untwisted her lipstick, puckered her lips, and coated them with a blood red color. Her mouth began making kissy noises.
“Are you offering?” Another section of my gondola shiny, I put the rag away, wiping my hands on my cloak.
“Maybe I am, and if you come to the club with me, who knows what could happen. Are you afraid to have some fun?” She winked and lifted the cloak to her femur, exposing a hot pair of red boots, as she stepped into her gondola.
Reina was pretty, but not as pretty as Bee. Feeling Bee’s warmth was addictive, but maybe I could forget Bee if I went with Reina. “All right, I’ll follow. What the heck.”
I wasn’t thinking, just doing. I stood up and cast off the bottom of the river sending the gondola forward. The further I went from Bee, the less I could feel her warmth.
We moved our gondolas side by side down the murky water of the River of Lost Souls. I wasn’t sure where this Grim Reaper hangout was and I didn’t care. Reina was fun to hang out with and I needed to forget Bee. I needed to keep it impersonal.
The half of Bee’s soul that lingered free inside of me, and warm, made it hard to forget her. I would go back for her tomorrow.
“Ad, you’re daydreaming. Bear right or we’ll end up in Vermont,” Reina said. Her blue-streaked hair shimmered as she looked at me. “You still breaking and entering? I think you’re the only Grim Reaper that carries around a paperclip.”
“It’s not a paperclip. I got a cop’s little black kit on one of my reaps.”
“Have you been practicing on materializing? Abe isn’t going to give you all the cushy reaps for long. I’ve been taking the brunt of the Hell assignments, you know.”
“Yeah, I’m working on it. Every time I concentrate on where I want to go, everything fades and it falls apart.”
“You have to back the location up with emotion,” she said.
I grunted. We came to a spot on the river where boulders protruded along the bank, making it impossible to dock. Reina threw a rope around a smaller rock. I took her lead and did the same. “So, where’s this club?”
“It’s just a hole in the wall.” She jumped into the water, high-heeled red